Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Lefebvre Affair and the Bombardment of Tourane

Tourane, Vietnam,
1847 – two warships came to the coast. The warships had French flags and
demanded the release of one of its missionary – Dominique Lefebvre. Suddenly,
the French began a bombardment of Tourane. But events prevailed before the
Bombardment of Tourane? What happened during the Bombardment? And lastly, what
happened after the incident occurred?

The events leading to
the Bombardment of Tourane centered on a French missionary named Dominique Lefebvre.
In 1835, he arrived in Vietnam following in the footsteps of other missionaries
that helped to establish the Nguyen Dynasty and evangelizing the people of
Vietnam. More than fifty years before the arrival of Lefebvre, the French
missionary became close to Nguyen Prince named Nguyen Anh. Later on, they
supported him in his conquest of Vietnam by creating a missionary army to fight
for the Prince. Eventually, they became victorious and Nguyen Anh took the
reign of Gia Long, ruling over the lands of modern day Vietnam and had
considerable influence in the kingdoms of Luang Prabang and Cambodia. Gia Long
treated the missionaries well and allowed them to preach freely. But after his
death in 1820, his successors felt suspicious of the French and Spanish missionaries
working in the country. They began to act against them, leading to arrest and
sometime executions. This situation prevailed when Dominique Lefebvre arrived
in Vietnam. Obviously, he gambled his life for the job. Lefebvre saw the
discriminative policies of the authorities and began to look for solutions to
improve their situation. In 1845, he came up with the idea of launching a
Palace coup in the capital city of Hue, dethroning the ruling anti- Christian
Emperor Thieu Tri, and replacing him with a more sympathetic or liberal
Emperor. The bold plan of Lefebvre never materialized because the authority
managed to discover the plot. They arrested Lefebvre, incarcerated him in the
city of Hue, and sentenced him to death.

But the authorities
suspended the sentence after Lefebvre managed to sneak a letter to an American
captain. In the spring of 1845, the American ship, USS Constitution docked in
the port of Tourane. Back in Hue, Lefebvre got the news of the American ship in
Tourane. He had a letter smuggled out of the prison and into the hands of the
captain of the Constitution, John Percival. When Percival received the letter,
Vietnamese official boarded the ship and welcomed it to the port. After reading
the distress letter of Lefebvre, the Captain held the Vietnamese officials
hostage and demanded the release of Lefebvre. The Vietnamese, however, refused
to give in to the brazen demands of the American Captain. Eventually, Percival
left Tourane in disgrace. The United States disagreed and disavowed with the Captain
Percival’s action and they also apologized to Vietnam.

But the actions of
the Captain led to the reduction of the sentence of Lefebvre to longtime
imprisonment. In addition, Percival reported to the French naval commander in
the Far East Admiral Jean-Baptiste Cecille the imprisonment of the French
missionary. In 1846, Admiral Cecille sent the warship, Alcmene, under Captain
Fornier-Duplan to Tourane. Captain Fornier-Duplan threatened the Vietnamese for
the release of Lefebvre. The Vietnamese Emperor Thieu Tri began to worry about
continuing the imprisonment of Lefebvre. He feared that if Lefebvre
imprisonment drag on, a war against France might ensue. His fear increase when
an armed French warship came to its shores. He wanted to avoid war and so when
French demanded his release, he did so in addition to giving gifts to the
French captain. The Alcmene sailed out of
Vietnam.

The Lefebvre affair
could have ended after his release in 1846 if he did not crossed back to
Vietnam in May of the same year. He attempted to sneak back to Vietnam but
caught along with his companion priest named Duclos. Remembering his traitorous
act to the Emperor, the authorities arrested him once again in 1847. According
to some, the Vietnamese released Lefebvre on February of 1847.

Then on March,
suddenly, two French warship, the Gloire and the Victorieuse, sailed to the
Vietnamese port of Tourane under the command of Captains Charles Rigault de
Genouilly and Augustin de Lapierre. The two warships arrived and four
Vietnamese warships greeted them. They demanded the Vietnamese to release Lefebvre,
secure freedom of religion, and the Vietnamese warships to put down their
sails. It appears that the two French warship came unaware that the Vietnamese
had already released Lefebvre if the account that Lefebvre was released a month
ago. Nevertheless they continued.

By April 15, 1847,
the Vietnamese ignored the demand of the French and the French started the
bombardment. The French claimed self-defense and that the Vietnamese attacked
them but the Vietnamese said otherwise. Who really fired first remained a
mystery to this day. For 70 minutes the two French warship opened fire to the
nearby Vietnamese warships and the port of Tourane. The French attack resulted
to the sinking of three out of the four warships present and hundreds up to
thousands of death to the Vietnamese. After the attack, the French warships
sailed out of Vietnam.

The Bombardment of
the Tourane soon only became a practice of what would come next. Few months after
the Tourane bombardment, Emperor Thieu Tri passed away, leaving the throne to
Tu Duc. Under his reign, France increased their encroachment to Vietnam and
later Cambodia. The terrors of the Bombardment of Tourane returned in a much
powerful scale. Later on, Vietnam failed to cope up and modernize which
eventually led to its fall to the hands of French imperialism.